You’ve solved the problem of sirens and birds – there are fewer. Calls go to voicemail; sleep is a holiday but dreams are work. The vast emporia that welcome the poor, the farms, industrial parks and far-flung creditors are in good hands. Long-distance truckers, whatever their usual face, grin for the camera as they pull up to rest-stops to unload.

And as you turn in sleep a great light shines, its aim presumably to catch bad men, half-rat half-fungus, darker than dark, who both avoid and seek it; though if they surrendered, the dream would lose its terrors and its joy. You know that strength means not to second-guess yourself, as at your word rat-catchers, whose strength is to adore you, multiply.

Yet every dream as such is meant in fun, however awkward laughter feels by day. Its lease is endlessly renewed, it needs to show no profit. All roads end at a carnival, where food is candy, love a tunnel, happiness the length of the line behind one. Cheerfully you take a rifle at a shooting gallery, and only those you kill awake.

About the Author

Author of two book-length narrative poems, THE ADVENTURE and HAPPINESS (Story Line Press), and two collections, A POVERTY OF WORDS (Prolific Press, 2015) and LANDSCAPE WITH MUTANT (Smokestack Books, UK, 2018). Many other poems in print and online journals. Adjunct professor creative writing George Washington University, Washington, DC.